'We will continue hosting the Bitcoin whitepaper and won’t be silenced or intimidated,' Bitcoin.org says.
Bitcoin.org has been ordered to take down a copy of the Bitcoin whitepaper from its website… amid allegations of copyright infringement.
The site revealed that it has received a legal demand from lawyers representing Craig Wright, the Australian entrepreneur who claims he is “Satoshi Nakamoto,” BTC’s inventor.
In a scathing blog post, Bitcoin.org said that it is refusing to comply with the request.
BitcoinCore.org also received similar demands, with its developers scrambling to delete all references to the whitepaper from its website in under two hours. Bitcoin.org described this move as unfortunate, as it “lends credence to these false claims.” The post added:
“By surrendering in this way, the Bitcoin Core project has lent ammunition to Bitcoin’s enemies, engaged in self-censorship, and compromised its integrity. This surrender will no doubt be weaponized to make new false claims, like that the Bitcoin Core developers ‘know’ CSW to be Satoshi Nakamoto and this is why they acted in this way.”
The post also pointed out that the whitepaper was published under an open source license, and challenged Wright to produce the PGP public key that would make it cryptographically possible for him to prove that he is indeed Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin.org added:
“We will continue hosting the Bitcoin whitepaper and won’t be silenced or intimidated. Others hosting the whitepaper should follow our lead in resisting these false allegations.”
Wright registered the U.S. copyright for the BTC whitepaper back in April 2019 — and went on to claim that his filing had received government recognition. This prompted the U.S. Copyright Office to take the unusual step of releasing a statement that said “it does not investigate the truth of any statement made.”
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